NFL Blackouts Back In Buffalo, Tampa
BUFFALO (TheStreet) -- The Buffalo Bills and Tampa Bay Buccaneers apparently decided two weeks without a National Football League local television blackout would be a bit too much for fans to handle.
Before we get into the continued misery of Bucs and Bills fans, however, hats off to the Oakland Raiders for selling out last week's game, giving the NFL its first blackout-free week of the season. The Raiders not only stopped their blackout streak at 11 -- giving Oakland fans their first televised home game since the 2009 home opener last September -- but they got a needed win over their AFC West rivals the Kansas City Chiefs, moved a half-game behind the Chiefs for the division lead, climbed above .500 for the first time since they were 2-1 back in 2004, equaled last year's win total and are one win away from their best season since 2002.
The Raiders have seven games left and tough matchups with the Pittsburgh Steelers, Tennessee Titans, Indianapolis Colts and the Chiefs ahead. Yet there's hope in Raider Nation thanks to the combined efforts of quarterbacks Bruce Gradkowski and Jason Campbell, the resurgence of presumed-bust running back Darren McFadden and key defensive contributions from Richard Seymour and Tommy Kelly. Those players and a few other pieces are coming together at just the right time, when 21 NFL teams have winning percentages over .500 and every NFL team has at least two losses.
So ends the good news in the parity-laden league. This weekend's upcoming blackouts remind fans that the league is still on pace for at least 25 of them this season. That's three more than last season and 15 more than the NFL had in 2007, when average attendance of 68,700 per game exceeded this year's projected average by nearly 1,500 fans per game. While Eric Grubman, the NFL's vice president of NFL business ventures and operations, told USA Today at the beginning of the season that the league expected this kind of dropoff, the nearly 5% decline in capacity will put NFL attendance at its lowest level since 1998.
In Week 10, the reasons for this attendance drop are still as varied as on opening day. In Oakland, where one in every five people is unemployed, the Raiders still managed to pack Oakland Coliseum last week as their team started winning. In Tampa, where the Bucs are 5-3 and still only one game behind the NFC South-leading Atlanta Falcons, the franchise has already told hometown fans to take it elsewhere; unemployment 45% higher than the national average and home prices declining by five figures a month have stunted ticket sales. Instead of a sellout at
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Stadium on Sunday for the Bucs' game against the Carolina Panthers , Bucs fans are paying for bus trips to watch televised home games beyond the blackout radius in Fort Myers or beers at the few local bars streaming the game over the Internet that haven't received cease-and-desist orders from the league.
Buffalo fans, who've watched their team basically forfeit the first half of the season with an 0-8 record -- including last week's "home" loss to the Chicago Bears in front of an undercapacity crowd in Toronto -- would love a 5-3 record. Quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick's performed admirably since predecessor Trent Edwards was shown the door, but this team can't find a running game (their leading rusher is Fred Jackson, who has racked up a scant 300 yards this season) and the only thing its defense has done consistently is make shaky opposing quarterbacks such as the Baltimore Ravens' Joe Flacco and the Bears' Jay Cutler look like Johnny Unitas clones.
The Bills haven't had a winning season since 2004 and play in one of the NFL's smallest markets, but had a 26-game sellout streak until their blackout last month. While it's tempting to blame this latest blackout on the 2-6 Detroit Lions, their fans and sponsors have at least seen some wins this season.
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,
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and all of Greater Buffalo is still waiting for the first notch in the win column and an end to blackouts that are more about futility than the economy.
-- Written by Jason Notte in Boston.
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Jason Notte is a reporter for TheStreet.com. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Huffington Post, Esquire.com, Time Out New York, the Boston Herald, The Boston Phoenix, Metro newspaper and the Colorado Springs Independent.
